Earlier this year, it looked like a new Tame Impala album would be dropping at least before the end of 2019. The group released singles in March and April (“Patience” and “Borderline,” respectively), ahead of a series of summer tour and festival dates. All signs were pointing to an album being out in the summer, but it never came to be. Now, though, there is official word about Tame Impala’s fourth album: A teaser video posted to the band’s website, which shows Kevin Parker working on new music in a studio, reveals that the album is called The Slow Rush, and that it’s set for a 2020 release.
Parker previously suggested he was aiming to release The Slow Rush before this past summer, saying in a 2018 interview, “I love playing Currents songs, I love playing Lonerism songs, but I think I’m ready to play some other songs live. […] I like that the first time people hear it is the kind of the recorded glory… like the premeditated thing that I’ve spent two years on, rather than being half drunk bashing it out on stage, hitting clanger notes.”
At the moment, it seems possible that Parker is still tinkering with the album: When asked in an interview this summer if he could see himself altering music post-release like Kanye West has, he responded, “It’s dangerous. When I first heard that he’d done that, I just went, ‘Oh, no! That’s gonna be me.’ When ‘Patience’ came out, I can’t tell you the number of things I wanted to change. I held myself back… well, actually, I didn’t. I asked if we could [make changes]… so that’s deadly.”
